The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2019
PrettyLittleThing's YouTube pre-roll built four scenes toward maximum sexualisation
PrettyLittleThing's YouTube ad stacked scene after scene of models in revealing chaps and bodysuits. The ASA ruled the cumulative effect objectified the women.
PrettyLittleThing · 2019-10-29
What happened
On 29 October 2019, fast-fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing ran a pre-roll YouTube ad opening with a model in black vinyl chaps-style knickers, followed by a model in a transparent mesh bodysuit lying with a neon bar between her legs, then a woman in a bikini top holding the bar behind her shoulders in what the ASA called a pose that accentuated her breasts, and finally a woman crouched with legs apart in chaps revealing string bikini bottoms.
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority found that no single scene alone might have crossed the line, but the cumulative effect of the sequence presented the products in an overly sexualised way that invited viewers to see the women as sexual objects.
The ASA ruled the ad irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence, in breach of CAP rules on responsibility to consumers and society, and ordered it not to run again in its current form.
Why it happened
- The ASA's 'cumulative effect' framing matters — one provocative shot might pass scrutiny, but a sequence deliberately escalating pose to pose reads as a pattern, not a moment.
- Selling clothing through poses that emphasize exposure over the garments shifts the ad's actual subject from product to body — the ASA read the emphasis, not just the wardrobe.
- Pre-roll ads reach a YouTube audience broader and younger than a retailer's own site — content calibrated for a shopper already browsing the catalogue plays differently pushed in front of any viewer.
The lesson
PrettyLittleThing's YouTube ad built four scenes of escalating sexualised poses. The ASA ruled the cumulative effect, not any one shot, crossed into objectification, and banned it.
Aftermath
The ad was pulled from its current form; PrettyLittleThing continued running video advertising under closer ASA scrutiny in the following years.
Sources
- 'Overly sexualised' PrettyLittleThing ad banned by Advertising Standards Authority — Prolific North
- ASA bans 'overly sexualised' PrettyLittleThing YouTube ad — Essential Retail
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